1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus capable of executing a plurality of applications to perform service processing.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is a system in which an integrated circuit (IC) card unit provided with the short-range wireless communication function can be connected to an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine. The authentication function/service has been commercialized to be used with such an image forming apparatus for enabling an image forming apparatus to identify a user and the department of the user and determine whether or not the user is allowed to use the image forming apparatus when the user holds an IC card storing user identification information over an IC card unit before operating the image forming apparatus.
With the increase in the number of copying machines designed as an open platform, the above-described function/service has been widely developed and commercialized by not only copying machine manufactures but also third-party software vendors (refer to “Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-251279”).
Generally, for use in the authorization function with use of an IC card as mentioned above, the required specification varies depending on a market and a customer's environment. Especially in consideration of the improvement of the customer satisfaction, it is desirable to offer the service by realizing the specification and device configuration (an IC card unit and an authentication server) according to customer's requests.
On the other hand, there has been proposed an expensive image forming apparatus supporting an application based on the application programming interface (API) specification for an open platform. Such an image forming apparatus can be flexibly and conveniently arranged according to implementation of an application.
However, in a low-price image forming apparatus that is not designed as an open platform, a controller of the apparatus has to appropriately perform a control according to a device to be connected thereto and a service to be provided thereby. As a result, a problem arises in that it is difficult to develop, for example, a system employing a system with use of an IC card as mentioned above.